In 1932, in the depths of the Depression, thousands of hungry and disgruntled veterans of WW I marched on Washington, D.C. demanding that Congress pay them the bonus for their military service that had been promised years before. Banding together, unemployed Oregon cannery workers marched with Pennsylvania coal miners and Alabama cotton pickers, as more than 20 thousand "bonus marchers" participated in the biggest rally to date in the nation's capital. And they stayed for weeks, setting up tent cities, living in cardboard shanties, and shaking the nerves of President Hoover. Find out how they played a role in defeating Hoover in the fall election, and improving the government's treatment of veterans after WW II.

Program Credits

Bonus Army March was produced by Lex Gillespie. The original elements were assembled and mixed by David First. Christian Mendelhall read the excerpts from Walter Water's book. Additional research was conducted by Annie Wu and Andrew Purgham. The program was originally produced by WAMU's Washington Series.